Driving Directions to Dive Sites

[bmwcaves]

Hmmm... Not quite, the old Topos didn't have the locations marked

I still had to find many of them on the topos. There really isn't a good list of GPS coordinantes anywere remember.

You might be suprised at how big the list really is..... but then again, they are not posted on the internet.

Brian

[Walter Pickel]

You might be suprised at how big the list really is..... but then again, they are not posted on the internet.

Brian

Sounds like a challenge! And no I'm not surprised. We haven't even started on what's in the Gulf yet.

[Dan Thoms]

[Cindy]

Hey, these list are always a source of confusion to me. I don't believe in listing directions. If you list the cave doesn't that of itself create increased interest in the cave and get more people looking for it? What is the point? To provide more information on a need to know basis, promote yourself as being in the know, letting people know conditions? There are tons of conditon sites that NEVER get used. I think you need to sit down with your pals and come up with a mission statement that you need to stick to if you have not done so already. What are your goals here? Are you going to make caves pay the price of your advertisements and ego? I'm not trying to be mean, just make you think a little more. Cow was a pretty pristine cave before it started to be published and advertised by the new owners. That was their decision and the cave shows increased usage and wear because of it. Then again, as a training agency where do you put your divers? They train all those new divers, guess you have to stick them someplace. After all it's only a cave .....I was not allowed in cow until I had proved I had good skills. The whole mentor discussion has been done to death so I won't go into it. I know one man who plans to start river tours of all the little hard to access sidemount caves. He is a retired instructor. To me what he is planning is criminal. At least in the past those caves were only accessed by people who had mentors who knew where the cave was and knew the new diver was capable of doing the cave and not injuring himself or the cave. Now we are going to have people going to them with their wallet as the only qualifier. On the subject of dive buddies. I have never had a problem getting someone to dive with or refused anyone who needed a dive buddy. I dry cave also and have never seen that either. Maybe someone needs to work on social skills...Cindy

[Walter Pickel]

Cindy,

Thanks for your comments, I appreciate hearing everyone's side. Particular to my site though, I have no advertisements.

Walter

[Cindy]

Thank you for listening! That's more than most do. Just a question I thought of, have you contacted any of the land owners and asked it they want to be listed on a web site? Cindy

[MikeH]

There are two potential outcomes from removing directions to sites. One is that the sites will become less traveled because it is more of a mentor type system, and only those that have "the skills" will be allowed to visit.....the other is that cave diving will become more cliquish than it already is.

Cave diving is a unique sport.....most divers will only dive with those that they know well, and others will only dive with "like minded"(defined by a specific 3 letters) individuals. It's unfortunate that this occurs, but it does. As somebody else posted.....I have been to the "tourist" sites and been shunned by people just because I'm not part of their group. Nevermind that I may have more experience(in general or at that specific site) than them....they don't even go far enough to find that out. It's pretty pathetic.

Mike

[DKKearns]

Does anyone still have a Copy of the gray paper-back "Springs of FL" book?

I do Norm. It's the Florida Geological Survey (FGS) Geological Bulletin No. 31, Springs of Florida, dated 1947. I also have the FGS Report of Investigations No. 39., Reconnaissance of Springs and Sinks in West Central Florida, dated 1965.

Back when I was in grad school at the Univ. of Georgia in the early '70s, I was trying to make my masters thesis relate somehow to the springs and sinks of Florida. Unfortunately, I failed and had to move to a much more boring topic. But in doing the preliminary work, I accumulated some of these types of reference material.

Donn

[Kelly Jessop]

Cave diving is a unique sport.....most divers will only dive with those that they know well, and others will only dive with "like minded"(defined by a specific 3 letters) individuals. It's unfortunate that this occurs, but it does. As somebody else posted.....I have been to the "tourist" sites and been shunned by people just because I'm not part of their group. Nevermind that I may have more experience(in general or at that specific site) than them....they don't even go far enough to find that out. It's pretty pathetic.

Mike

Mike I understand your comments. Some us when we were trained in cave diving,we were trained as the mechanics of the team,something that is developed by diving with the same people. As cave diving has become more recreationalized many of the concepts of recreational diving have become prevelent ie show up at a dive site expecting to buddy up with somebody. I have never shunned anybody,and promote mentorship actively,but these dives are typically different since I don't know this person,and my life can depend on their actions,even if they claim to have lots of experience. If I have a more difficult dive that involves long penetrations or very small and silty,then I fall back on the team concept,people I know and dive with quite often. I think a perfect example is our dry caving brethern. They come off as seeming they are cliqueish,but far from it,they will bring you into their fold slowly so they can develop confidence between both parties. I think cave diving applies as well. Good luck,and I understand your frustration.

[Cindy]

You guys realize you are actually talking about two subjects. Posting directions to a site and what the possible results of that action can be and the second subject seems to be the interactions you have had in the past with your fellow cave divers.
Being snubbed by some divers in public obviously didn't hurt you or you wouldn't still be diving. From what I can tell very few mentors are found hanging out at the steps of Ginnie. Maybe some, but it's not common. Most of the mentors I found were through involvement in teams, going to workshops, being guided at caves, calling them on the phone or having a mutual friend introduce me. As you can tell all those things require some effort. It seems your point here is that you should be able to post cave sites and directions (I take it to every site you can find out about) because you don't want to deal with having to work for something. You want to just be able to get on a web site and take off. What I see written into that is you don't care about the caves or the land owner wishes. All you want to do is go dive and it should be easy for you. Correct me if I am wrong. Do you care if these caves get torn up? Many of these caves are very fragile. Is the ease of your personal enjoyment so important that sites should be closed because people are bothered who don't want divers on there land, people get hurt because they are not ready to be there? What is wrong with doing a little legwork? I asked a man lately about a site near Spring Hill I had seen posted about. I was told that the landowner was just now allowing people in and once a waiver was done he would let people know they could dive. I backed off diving there. I could have just jumped in and not given a fig about others but I didn't. Just because we have a tool like the internet doesn't mean we have to use it. When we do use the web why can't it be used with some morality and wisdom? Cindy Butler